diagnosis

This unit explores the role of diagnosis in the treatment of mental health problems. It considers the history of our current understandings of 'mental health' and 'illness' with focus on the concepts of anxiety and depression, and looks at potential gains and losses in using diagnostic labels in counselling and pyschotherapy. This unit is an adapted extract from The Open University course D240 Counselling: exploring fear and sadness . It is at introductory level, and should take 8 hours to complete.

The topic of this briefing is the nature and diagnosis of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and the related disorder or sub-type, Hyperkinetic Disorder (HKD), among children and adolescents. Report published by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) in August 2004 (updated August 2005)

Christopher Gillberg is Professor of Child Psychiatry at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and Visiting Professor in the Division of Community Based Sciences, University of Glasgow. One of the world's leading academic child psychiatrists, he has published hundreds of papers on autism, ADHD and related conditions.

Alcoholism is one of the most common psychiatric disorders with a prevalence of 8 to 14 percent. This heritable disease is frequently accompanied by other substance abuse disorders (particularly nicotine), anxiety and mood disorders, and antisocial personality disorder.

Although associated with considerable morbidity and mortality, alcoholism often goes unrecognized in a clinical or primary health care setting. Several brief screening instruments are available to quickly identify problem drinking, often a pre-alcoholism condition.

UK Government strategy offering a strategic framework within which local services in England can make quality improvements to dementia services and tackle health inequalities. Practical advice, guidance and support for health and social care commissioners and providers in the planning, development and monitoring of services is provided.

Episode Four of the Scottish Recovery Network's Journeys of Recovery podcast features the stories 'The evolutionary jigsaw', 'Doesn't time fly when you're depressed' and 'To hell and back'. The narrative was derived from an interview conducted as part of the 'Recovering mental health in Scotland' (2007) for the Scottish Recovery Network. It was collaboratively written by interviewer and interviewee and is available in print form in the 'Journeys of recovery' booklet produced by the SRN.

What are effective ways to interact with older patients, particularly with those facing multiple illnesses, hearing and vision impairments, or cognitive problems? How does one approach sensitive topics such as driving privileges or assisted living? Are there special communication strategies that can help older patients who are experiencing confusion or memory loss? It is with these questions in mind, that the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institute of Health, developed this Handbook.